The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2014, and October 31, 2015 (see FAQ for exceptions), are automatically nominated for the 2015 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on October 15, 2015, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.

"An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one's personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona."

Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.Read full book review >

"In terms of overarching significance, this is a slight book. It's worthy, however, for devoted professional baseball fans and for its artfulness in creating a narrative focused primarily on just one pitch—like that achieved by Mike Sowell in The Pitch that Killed (1989)."

New York Daily News sports columnist Bondy (Who's on Worst?: The Lousiest Players, Biggest Cheaters, Saddest Goats and Other Antiheroes in Baseball History, 2013, etc.) builds an entire book around one controversial play during a game between the New York Yankees and Kansas City Royals on July 24, 1983.
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"Stubbs' doorstop is well-researched, well-written, intensely detailed, and oftentimes gripping, but unless you have a couple of Ash Ra Tempel albums in your collection or are intensely curious about German culture in the 1970s, you might be hard-pressed to make it through this exhaustive study of a relatively short-lived genre."

A massive answered prayer for fans of Krautrock, without which "hip hop, techno, electropop, ambient and post-rock might never have evolved."
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"A sly, irreverent take on the latest obsessions regarding self-improvement."

New Yorker staff writer Marx (Starting from Happy: A Novel, 2011, etc.), the first woman elected to the Harvard Lampoon, brings her wit and quirky curiosity to the timely topic of mental acuity.Read full book review >

Slate writer Neyfakh explores his complex relationship with an enigmatic underground rapper from Milwaukee who has spent the last decade in near obscurity, endlessly touring and producing a polarizing brand of hybrid hip-hop.
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No one would accuse V. I. Warshawski of backing down from a fight, but there are a few she’d be happy to avoid. High on that list is tangling with Chicago political bosses. Yet that’s precisely what she ends up doing when she responds to Frank Guzzo’s plea for help in Brush Back, the latest thriller from bestselling author Sara Paretsky. For six stormy weeks back in high school, V.I. thought she was in love with Frank. He broke up with her, she went off to college, he started driving trucks for Bagby Haulage. She forgot about him until the day his mother was convicted of bludgeoning his kid sister, Annie, to death. Stella Guzzo was an angry, uncooperative prisoner and did a full 25 years for her daughter’s murder. Newly released from prison, Stella is looking for exoneration, so Frank asks V.I. for help. “Paretsky, who plots more conscientiously than anyone else in the field, digs deep, then deeper, into past and present until all is revealed,” our reviewer writes.
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FEATURED NONFICTION AUTHOR

When Susan Southard was a high school student in the early 1970s, a study abroad trip to Japan brought her to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. There, looking at photographs of the city’s atomic bomb victims along with her fellow Japanese classmates, a “visceral understanding of war” awakened in her ...

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